First of all, I am using an Olympus EM5ii that has been modified to capture in full spectrum Infrared. And I am using what known as a Super Blue filter made by Kolari Vision. This filter is designed to be used only on a full spectrum camera.
First, Kolari actually does recommend using a "Daylight" White Balance for which the result is not that impressive. But the filter is also very similar to a Tiffen #47 filter and also a Schott BG3 filter. In googling the Tiffen #47 filter, I find that it is also used with a "Blue Sky" White Balance with reason being that the white balance needs to based only on blue with no other color, particularly green, in the white balance.
Now using the Blue Sky WB, I captured in both JPEG and RAW, and here is where the problem surfaces.
Now here is the result using the JPEG. Notice the sky and the brilliant Yellow color of the leaves. This filter does not require color channel swapping. What you see is what comes out of the camera.
JPEG Straight out of the Camera
Using Lightroom, both the JPEG and the RAW show up looking like this in the thumbnails. But watch what happens to the RAW image once Lightroom goes into Develop Mode. Lightroom uses ACR and for the thumbnails, the RAW file is presented using the embedded JPEG. But in Develop Module, the RAW changes to using the actual RAW image rather than the embedded JPEG.
The image now looks like this in the Develop Module
Now I repeated this using Photoshop, and when seen in Adobe Camera RAW, we see the same above image. This is telling me that ACR, which is used by Lightroom for RAWs and Photoshop while it is still in ACR.
Next, I tried loading the RAW directly into DxO Photolab 7 and I see the Yellow color again, but it shows more orange and after exporting as a JPEG, I see this:
As exported by DxO Photolab 7, it now shows more orange
Then I tried Affinity Photo and it produced the original Yellow. Same with the Topaz JPEG to RAW. And they both can then be loaded into LR and Photoshop with the Yellow intact. But using LR's Plug-in Extras to load the RAW into Topaz's Photo AI, the yellow image is now quite dull, but it is still Yellow.
So the question is: "Why is ACR failing to load the image properly"?
One more observation, and this shows that Kolari was aware of this problem with ACR, is that if I take that ugly image I see from the RAW, either in LR or ACR before Photoshop, and use a profile called NDVI-Deep or NDVI-Soft, I see this. Notice the Yellow is put back, but is not quite as brilliant and has a bit of orange. I used the NDVI-Deep for this result:
Kolari's profile NDVI-Deep used on the RAW
Now, I will show the results if I use the recommended WB of "Daylight" by Kolari, I start with this.
Initial Image using Daylight WB
If I now offset the Temperature with -50K and do a WB on the white stripe around the court, I get this.
After -50K Temperature offset and then WB on the white line
And then, some adjustments in LR to increase the contrast, I get this. Nore color than a 590nm filter, but not as brilliant as the "Blue Sky" White Balance!
First, Kolari actually does recommend using a "Daylight" White Balance for which the result is not that impressive. But the filter is also very similar to a Tiffen #47 filter and also a Schott BG3 filter. In googling the Tiffen #47 filter, I find that it is also used with a "Blue Sky" White Balance with reason being that the white balance needs to based only on blue with no other color, particularly green, in the white balance.
Now using the Blue Sky WB, I captured in both JPEG and RAW, and here is where the problem surfaces.
Now here is the result using the JPEG. Notice the sky and the brilliant Yellow color of the leaves. This filter does not require color channel swapping. What you see is what comes out of the camera.
JPEG Straight out of the Camera
Using Lightroom, both the JPEG and the RAW show up looking like this in the thumbnails. But watch what happens to the RAW image once Lightroom goes into Develop Mode. Lightroom uses ACR and for the thumbnails, the RAW file is presented using the embedded JPEG. But in Develop Module, the RAW changes to using the actual RAW image rather than the embedded JPEG.
The image now looks like this in the Develop Module
Now I repeated this using Photoshop, and when seen in Adobe Camera RAW, we see the same above image. This is telling me that ACR, which is used by Lightroom for RAWs and Photoshop while it is still in ACR.
Next, I tried loading the RAW directly into DxO Photolab 7 and I see the Yellow color again, but it shows more orange and after exporting as a JPEG, I see this:
As exported by DxO Photolab 7, it now shows more orange
Then I tried Affinity Photo and it produced the original Yellow. Same with the Topaz JPEG to RAW. And they both can then be loaded into LR and Photoshop with the Yellow intact. But using LR's Plug-in Extras to load the RAW into Topaz's Photo AI, the yellow image is now quite dull, but it is still Yellow.
So the question is: "Why is ACR failing to load the image properly"?
One more observation, and this shows that Kolari was aware of this problem with ACR, is that if I take that ugly image I see from the RAW, either in LR or ACR before Photoshop, and use a profile called NDVI-Deep or NDVI-Soft, I see this. Notice the Yellow is put back, but is not quite as brilliant and has a bit of orange. I used the NDVI-Deep for this result:
Kolari's profile NDVI-Deep used on the RAW
Now, I will show the results if I use the recommended WB of "Daylight" by Kolari, I start with this.
Initial Image using Daylight WB
If I now offset the Temperature with -50K and do a WB on the white stripe around the court, I get this.
After -50K Temperature offset and then WB on the white line
And then, some adjustments in LR to increase the contrast, I get this. Nore color than a 590nm filter, but not as brilliant as the "Blue Sky" White Balance!
Last edited:
